Stephanie Grisham, the chief spokeswomen for U.S. First Lady Melania Trump, has been named the new White House Press Secretary.
The first lady made the announcement on Twitter, saying she can think of no better person to serve the administration & our country.
I am pleased to announce @StephGrisham45 will be the next @PressSec & Comms Director! She has been with us since 2015 – @potus & I can think of no better person to serve the Administration & our country. Excited to have Stephanie working for both sides of the @WhiteHouse. #BeBest
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) June 25, 2019
President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that long time Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was planning to step down.
“Our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas,” Trump said on his personal Twitter account. “She is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job!”
Sanders called her tenure as White House press secretary “the honor of a lifetime, the opportunity of a lifetime” adding, “I’ve loved every minute – even the hard minutes.”
Sanders has been one of the president’s most trusted aides during her tenure in the West Wing from the start of the Trump presidency, rising from principal deputy press secretary when Sean Spicer was the top spokesman.
Sanders has been a fierce defender of the controversial president and frequently tangled with White House reporters during contentious news conferences, chastising them for negative coverage of Trump and attempting to correct what she considered were mistakes in their reporting.
Commentators criticized her for straining credulity on behalf of an unconventional boss who regularly unleashes verbal attacks on political foes, foreign governments and journalists and who has repeatedly labeled the press the “enemy of the people.”
The media briefings, once a regular and popular event on afternoon cable TV news channels, increasingly became infrequent and have disappeared altogether in the past three months.